SQL: COUNT Function:: What is the difference between count(1) and count(*) in a sql query

TIP: Performance Tuning

Since the COUNT function will return the same results regardless of what NOT NULL field(s) you include as the COUNT function parameters (ie: within the brackets), you can change the syntax of the COUNT function to COUNT(1) to get better performance as the database engine will not have to fetch back the data fields.
For example, based on the example above, the following syntax would result in better performance:

SELECT department, COUNT(1) as "Number of employees"
FROM employees
WHERE salary > 25000
GROUP BY department;

Now, the COUNT function does not need to retrieve all fields from the employees table as it had to when you used the COUNT(*) syntax. It will merely retrieve the numeric value of 1 for each record that meets your criteria.